An illustrated coastline from above at golden hour, a shallow blue-green sea lapping pale sandbars, dense forest inland with rivers threading out to the sea, mountains in the distance.

What did Earth look like during the Triassic?

The Triassic began 251.902 million years ago and ended 201.4 million years ago. Across it the share of the world below sea level went from 68.6% to 61.4% — the biggest fall between any two maps on this site.

AI reconstruction — not a photograph · Shutterstock AI/Shutterstock.com · Shutterstock Standard License

Near the beginning

Both reconstructions this site uses reach back 250 million years. The Triassic began about 251.902 million years ago — a little earlier — so this first map is nearly, not quite, the start of the period. It is the oldest picture we can honestly show you.

About 250 million years ago, near the start of the Triassic. The source calls this map the Permo-Triassic Boundary.

Land
Shallow sea
Deep ocean

Yellow is land, mid-blue is shallow sea, dark blue is deep ocean. The map is drawn flat, so places near the poles look wider than they really are.

This is one model’s answer, not a photograph. It shows the world about 250 million years ago — the age of the map itself, which is the closest the source gets to the ages on this site.

Map data: Scotese, C. R., & Wright, N. M. (2018). PALEOMAP Paleodigital Elevation Models (PaleoDEMS) for the Phanerozoic (Version 2) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5460860 Licensed CC BY 4.0. Grid 360×180 at 1° — about 111 km per cell at the equator, so nothing the size of a town can be read from it.

Steep eroded canyons of banded sedimentary rock in Badlands National Park.

Real photograph · 301131261/Shutterstock.com · Shutterstock Standard (free image collection, API) License

And near the end

About 200 million years ago, near the end of the Triassic. The source calls this map the Late Triassic.

Land
Shallow sea
Deep ocean

Yellow is land, mid-blue is shallow sea, dark blue is deep ocean. The map is drawn flat, so places near the poles look wider than they really are.

This is one model’s answer, not a photograph. It shows the world about 200 million years ago — the age of the map itself, which is the closest the source gets to the ages on this site.

Between those two maps the share of the world below sea level went from 68.6% to 61.4% — a fall of 7.2 points. That is the largest change between any two maps on this site, and it happens across the period when the land is most gathered together.

This page does not say why. Two maps and the difference between them is arithmetic; a reason would be a claim, and no source here provides one.

Thin tilted layers of grey and rust-brown sedimentary rock filling the frame, with cracks across them.

Real photograph · Tatiana Diuvbanova/Shutterstock.com · Shutterstock Standard License

Triassic Water is named after this period

The water on those maps is the same water in your tap. It has been going round ever since — evaporating, raining, running to the sea — and none of it has left the planet. That is the whole idea this site is built on.

Several towns on this site have rock from this period underneath them. Bath sits on it, and the reptile footprints near Manchester were pressed into Triassic sand.

For teachers

For school

Both reconstructions this site uses reach back 250 million years.
Between those two maps the share of the world below sea level went from 68.6% to 61.4% — a fall of 7.2 points.
The water on those maps is the same water in your tap.

Classroom prompt

The Triassic began a little before the oldest map this site can show. Why does the page call its first map nearly, not quite, the start of the period — and why not just label it as the start?

Extension: this page measures the biggest fall in sea between any two of its maps and refuses to say why. What kind of evidence would you need before you could give a reason?

Ages: comparing the two Triassic maps works from about seven; working out the fall in points suits pupils of about nine upwards. That range is our teaching choice for this page, not a curriculum claim.

Where this comes from

The maps: PALEOMAP Paleodigital Elevation Models (PaleoDEMS) for the Phanerozoic, version 2. Scotese, C. R., & Wright, N. M. (2018). PALEOMAP Paleodigital Elevation Models (PaleoDEMS) for the Phanerozoic (Version 2) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5460860 Licensed CC BY 4.0. Read from a copy whose checksum is recorded in this repository, so the numbers on this page can be checked against the exact file they came from.
How sure is this?: Every map here is a reconstruction — an estimate built from evidence, not a photograph. Its authors call each one the “best guess” or average geography for the time it represents, which is a fair description and worth repeating. 1° cells — roughly 111 km at the equator. Nothing at the scale of a town can be read from this grid. The source grid is 5 million years. An age between two maps is NOT interpolated: the nearest map is used and its own age is what gets published.

One reconstruction among several. PALEOMAP draws the world here; MULLER2019 places individual points elsewhere on this site. They are different models and are never composited or averaged.

Read from the source archive on 1 September 2026.

Where next

The fall stops in the next period: the Jurassic is where the water comes back. The second of this page’s two maps has a page to itself at 200 million years ago, and the Ancient Earth pages gather the other ages.